FamilySearch is in the news again with a new project that promises to be one of the most exciting yet for genealogy beginners.

The new project focus is to index U.S. Immigration and Naturalization records as well as passenger lists, border crossing records and passports. The ultimate objective to indexing these records is to make them freely available for family tree enthusiasts looking for their immigrant ancestors.

One of the very first things you learn as a genealogy beginner is to look in birth, marriage, death and census records for clues to uncovering your ancestral past. Then you learn about land records, sasines and other records associated with genealogy.

One often overlooked source of information for your family tree are trades union records.

Prior to 1869 in Great Britain, individuals who acquired debt could be sent to jail until their debts were paid in full. For many this could be a life sentence, not only for the insolvent individual but also for their entire family.

As life without the main provider would most often mean severe poverty for the family of a debtor, entire communities began to spring up inside of debtor’s prisons resulting in children being born and raised inside them. Continue reading “Ancestors in Debtor’s Prison” »

If you are searching for ancestors who served in the British Military Forces, you may want to check out Forces War Records; a new genealogy site that looks to be one of the best-organized search sites of its kind on the net.

Forces War Records has over four million records for British Armed Forces personnel.

Genealogists have long used cemeteries as a source for finding ancestors in their family trees. Burial grounds are a repository of the history of people, they record lives lived and commemorate deaths.

They are frequently filled with beautiful statuary, touching memorials and every so often …humorous remembrances.

Records of our ancestor’s deaths can reveal vital clues that help with tracing the family tree. Genealogists have long recognized the importance of the information held in these records such as names, dates and places.

However quite often, family historians want more than the dry facts. We want to get to know our ancestors through the paper trails they have left behind. Even more importantly, we sometimes want to learn more about a family history of disease.

“Who Do You Think You Are” begins each episode by saying “To know who you are, you have to know where your story began”. Those words could not ring truer than in the first two episodes of season three.

The rare discovery of a 19th century slave cemetery was made in the summer of 2010 by University of Florida anthropologist James Davidson. The site containing the skeletal remains of six individuals was found on the Kingsley Plantation, Fort George Island, Jacksonville Florida; home to the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve. Working with the University of Florida’s archeological field school, Davidson, who led the expedition says,